Saturday, September 07, 2013

I ran a race the other day. A nice little local 10km on rolling country roads, just 'round the corner from our place.

It
counted as my first RACE race since March 2011- I've done a few
"events" since then, but as I was either pregnant or plain old unfit,
none of them really felt like races.

I finished a hair over 53 minutes, which was great as I'd been
shooting for 55, but frustrating, as a number starting with 52 would
have sounded just a little bit better. I was happy with the time, but
happier with the splits, which were all within about 15 seconds of each
other, and involved an overall negative split of about a minute.

I was happier still to be passing people pretty much the whole way, with a little bit of healthy leapfrogging for good measure.

(I
also put my time and current weight into a little weight/age grading
calculator, which says it's about the equivalent of a 48 minute 10k at
my pre-pregnancy age and weight, not that that means anything).

It rained a lot before and after, but not much during. The
rain was frustrating as it meant the race morning wasn't how I'd
envisioned it (jogging over, while the lads biked along later with my
stuff) and because no matter how awesome and hardcore you are, running
with wet socks is never fun.

I was surprised by how good it felt to be
"racing" again. Turns out that while I'm OK to be in maintenance mode,
fitness-wise, a little bit of Old Kate still feels good.